other title:
女终结者
/
Pembalasan ratu pantai selatan
…
Meet the Queen of the South Seas. A sexually voracious goddess, she lures young men to her castle and, if they fail to satisfy her demands, kills them faster than you can say 'vagina dentata', leaving her handmaidens to dispose of the castrated remains…
One night the Queen meets her match. Her priapic suitor snatches the snake that is the source of her power from between her thighs – causing it to transform into a kris faster than you can say 'blatant symbolism' – and demands that she submit to be his wife as custom apparently dictates. The Queen, however, refuses, swears revenge on the man's ancestors and plunges into the sea to commune with evil…
Fast forward 100 or so years and we are introduced to Tanya (Kristianna Loken, er Barbara Anne Constable), an foreign anthropology student researching the legend of the South Seas Queen for her thesis. She charters a boat, goes diving and inexplicably winds up spreadeagled on a giant-size bed in the Queen's undersea lair to then be penetrated by the magic snake-phallus.
A few days later – the boat having been lost at sea in a sudden, inexplicable storm – the now-reincarnated Queen/Tanya rises from the sea Aphrodite-like (though that's surely an ethnocentric description; why not Aphrodite rose from the sea Nyai Loro Kidul-like after all he then says in a bout of self-criticism) and disposes of a couple of drunks, thereby equipping herself with tight leathers and some firearms with a seemingly endless supply of ammunition…
From here on it's pretty much a rehash of The Terminator as the Sea Queen goes after Erica, a singer who is the descendant of her suitor. Policeman Max (Christopher J. Hart) and his buddies rescue Erica from a disco massacre – cue the "Come with me if you want to live" line – and take her to the station for protection. Naturally Lady Terminator arrives and shoots the place up, but Erica and her new love interest manage to escape. A protracted series of chases, shoot outs and explosions ensue until, finally, Max and co. face off against the now-Zombie like Lady Terminator, complete with eyes shoting laser beams…
Is Lady Terminator a good film? Do you really need me to say no?. One laughs at the film rather than with it, whether it be the fashions and hairstyles – snowwashed jeans and mullets anyone? – the ropey effects; the overly intrusive and decidedly cheesy synth score; shoehorning in of Terminator-isms as when the otherwise all-but indestructible Queen removes and then reinserts a damaged eye; or – first among equals – the often ludicrous post-synched dialogue:
Max: We have three very dead bodies here…
Other cop #1: Very interesting. It says here all three of these guys died with their cocks bitten off. Could be a small animal.
Other cop #2: The report says an eel. An eel on dry land? I've heard of the ultimate blow job but, uh, this is too much
Max: Obviously done by the same person. But why? What's his or her motive?
Other cop #1: How can a human being do this?
Other cop #2: Well, very easily. First you take their pants off…
(Note that this scene was preceded by otherwise pointless dialogue about eating hotdogs – say no more…)
Thus Lady Terminator is an enjoyable film, in that "so bad it's good" way that almost transcends rational analysis. It is also evident, however, that the film-makers believed in what they were doing and, without condescencion, sought to do the best they could, injecting energy and style into the proceedings and putting their money on the screen. Plus, it's also worth remembering how The Terminator doesn't exactly always shine in the make-up and FX departments either, as with the way Ahnuld's head gets broader rather than narrower as the film progresses and his inner robotics are exposed, or that painfully obvious matte painting of the coming desert storm at the end.
It is also an interesting film. The fusion of traditional Indonesian myth and western science-fiction may never quite come off, but the collision of cultures and ideas at least provides plenty of food for thought, with what is relatively chase material by comparision with western trash cinema standards – one thinks of Lina Romay's not dissimilar femme catastrices in Jess Franco's Female Vampire and Doriana Grey or the outright porno of The Sperimator – but which would seem to have pushed the boundaries as far as the Indonesian authorties were concerned, with the film having apparently been banned in the territory at one point.
Yet the temptation is often to overanalyse, as if by of justification: One could well imagine some grand Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires style thesis whereby the anthropologist becomes emblematic of western imperialism, purporting to be interested in understanding native culture but really only imposing her existing definitions upon it as Other, with her possession thereby a somewhat justifiable indigenous response to this hubris. Such a reading would then doubtless continue with the figure of Max as instrumental in defeating the Sea Queen in saving Erika as symptomatic of a paradoxical counterposing statement to the effect that Indonesians cannot do without their western allies – and doubtless the whole thing would then be read as a coded critique and/or endorsement of the Suharto regime, depending on the spin.
The more prosaic truth, however, is surely that the presence of the westerners was first and foremost a means of enhancing Lady Terminator's office potential on the export market – a testament to cultural imperialism itself, to be sure, but hardly one that requires intellectual gymnastics.
And this, ultimately, is how and why Lady Terminator works: It's a film whose goal is to please its diverse audiences and into which anything and everything that might accomplish this aim has been thrown, regardless of how well those ingredients (and their respective audiences) really go together.
Thankfully, the cocktail tastes good – albeit in a bad taste way – and has the desired stupefying effect…
